I am a scholar committed to understanding the relationships between society and the production and governance of the built environment. This means that I investigate how actors and institutions from the public sector, the private sector and civic society interact in planning, designing, governing and inhabiting the built environment, both formally and informally. These basic but foundational ideas explain much of my actions as an educator and researcher.

The formal relationships between actors and the built environment include the development of formal policies and plans that shape our cities and communities. Meanwhile, informal relationships include actions by citizens, private enterprises and sometimes public actors that shape and change the built environment through informal institutions. For Elinor Ostrom (Ostrom, 2015), informal institutions are the “unwritten rules” related to culture, values, informal practices, and inherited worldviews that influence the way by which formal institutions work.

Key Issues: Sustainability and Social Justice

I work in the intersection between spatial planning, design, governance and sustainability, understood in its three crucial dimensions: social, economic and environmental.

The integration of sustainability and justice is the bedrock for long-term, durable sustainability, especially when we consider that for sustainability to exist, its three essential components (environmental, social, and economic) must occur simultaneously. It is in this convergence that I see the future of spatial planning. This gap must be urgently addressed, as inequity and unfairness in the distribution of burdens and benefits of development are widely recognised to undermine sustainability.

The literature on socio-technical transitions is clear about the need to look at the socio-spatial relations where transitions take place. Most surprisingly, however, socio-technical transitions to sustainability mostly fail to incorporate concepts of justice, democracy and redistribution, bedrocks of social sustainability.

Spatial Justice: A Working Definition

The scale and scope of the transition strategies needed to achieve sustainability demands immediate action from universities to educate future managers, planners and designers of transition strategies that are also spatial strategies. Spatial planning as a discipline and practice has largely ignored the discussion on socio-technical transitions, and there is scope for better integration between the two fields.

Much of my research and teaching tries to consider ways of integrating socio-spatial justice and sustainability. I make this exploration explicit with the Centre for the Just City.

Promoting Integration of Sustainability and Social Justice

The issue of how to foster and govern transitions towards sustainability means that local, regional and national authorities need to promote and govern fundamental transformation toward sustainable modes of urbanisation. Issues related to far-reaching transformation of socio-technical systems (energy, water, mobility, housing) are deeply intertwined with how our cities and regions are planned, designed and built.

A fundamental aspect of sustainability transitions are the social structures that support them and the ethical and moral imperative to make these transitions inclusive and fair. Social sustainability is founded on well-functioning political, institutional and legal systems that deliver fair outcomes regarding environmental, economic and social burdens and benefits — which are often spatially bounded or embedded in spatial structures and infrastructures.

The Metropolitan Innovators course is entirely based on these premises and explores the intersections between socio-technical transitions toward sustainability, the ecosystems approach and spatial justice, seeking to integrate these three perspectives. More info: course guide on Issuu.

The issues of sustainability and spatial justice are crucial everywhere, but most urgent in the Global South, which is urbanising at record rates. The UN-Habitat New Urban Agenda recognises the “mutually reinforcing relationship between urbanisation and development, with the aim that they become parallel vehicles for sustainable development”. The objectives of the Department of Urbanism align remarkably well with those pursued by UN-Habitat in the New Urban Agenda.

The relationship with UN-Habitat and the World Urban Campaign has structured much of my work. This led to my participation at the World Urban Forum in Kuala Lumpur in 2018 with a well-attended special event where I discussed education for the New Urban Agenda, co-leadership of the faculty-wide “Africa Initiative” and a PrepCon “African Perspectives on Inclusive, Fair and Inclusive Urbanisation” in Addis-Ababa in partnership with EiABC.

Publications on Informal Urbanisation

My work on informal urbanisation has culminated in several internationally recognised publications, most notably the Routledge Handbook on Informal Urbanisation, co-edited with Jan van Ballegooijen (Rocco & Ballegooijen, 2019). Bringing together contributions from 24 cities across the Global South, the volume has become a key reference for scholars and practitioners interested in the political, social and spatial dimensions of urban informality. It helped consolidate an international network of researchers working on informal urbanisation, governance, spatial justice and sustainable urban development.

Since then, my research has expanded towards the governance of just urban transitions, spatial justice and democratic planning. Through initiatives such as the Centre for the Just City, the Horizon Europe project UP2030, and advisory work for the Union for the Mediterranean, I have sought to bridge critical scholarship with planning practice and policy, contributing to international debates on how planning systems can advance more equitable, democratic and sustainable urban futures. Alongside this work, I have convened tracks and keynote sessions at major international conferences, including AESOP, RC21, EURA and the World Urban Forum, helping to strengthen global scholarly communities around these themes.

The Summer School Planning and Design for the Just City

A concrete example of how I integrate research, education and societal engagement is the Summer School Planning and Design for the Just City, which I founded in 2014 and have co-directed with Caroline Newton since 2019. Held annually at TU Delft, the two-week programme brings together around 100 students, early-career professionals and practitioners from across the world to explore spatial justice, democratic planning, climate adaptation, housing, mobility, governance and sustainable urban development through lectures, workshops and fieldwork.

The Summer School combines critical theory with practical planning methods, introducing participants to Dutch planning traditions while engaging with urban challenges from both the Global North and Global South. It is organised in partnership with Delft Global, the Municipality of The Hague, the Municipality of Delft, ARCADIS, Deltares and numerous academic and civil society organisations. Through an extensive scholarship programme supported by institutional partners, the Summer School has enabled hundreds of participants from underrepresented regions, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa and other low- and middle-income countries, to take part, helping to build a truly global community of practice around spatial justice and just urban transitions.

Union for the Mediterranean

I led the writing process of the Union for the Mediterranean Strategic Action Plan for Sustainable Urbanisation. The Union for the Mediterranean is an intergovernmental institution bringing together 43 countries from the EU and the MENA region. TU Delft (SPS) is the lead knowledge partner, in charge of coordinating research that grounds both Action Plans, which aim to promote integrated, sustainable, fair and inclusive urban regeneration and development across the Mediterranean region.

Academic Leadership and Networks

Along the years, I have built an extensive academic network by attending, organising, chairing and presenting at over 40 international meetings and conferences, and have been invited to give keynote speeches at over 15 events. An overview of my public speaking activities can be found here and on PURE.

I have participated in two major externally funded research projects: PLEEC (Planning for Energy Efficient Cities) and COHESIFY (Understanding the Impact of EU Cohesion Policy on European Identification). More information can be found on ORCID and SCOPUS.

Ideas around the integration of sustainability and spatial justice are also central to the organisation of conferences with the explicit aim to kick-start exploration of new topics, such as the “Jane Jacobs centennial conference” and the “Cities and Citizenship in Latin American and the Caribbean Conference”, both organised in 2016 and both resulting in publications.